C) They arent supporting their product with firmware upgrades and fixes. Well they've released 1 update.

While I will not argue the other points, this one needs to be addressed. Sony has not been providing firmware updates for the Readers. That's just how it is. With one notable exception of the EPUB support added first to 505 and later to 500 (as Sony ebook store was taking a strategic direction to switch from BBeB to EPUB). Not that Sony software cannot be improved (it absolutely can and should be improved!), that's just how Sony is. The product normally works quite well out of the box, and unless a glaring bug causing much customer service headache pops up, that is what you get.

Yes, Amazon and B&N proved to be different. Both kindle and nook were released with very raw firmware (especially nook-1, which was total crap, and IMO still is); the improvements, fixes and upgrades to come later. Unfortunately, Sony works in yearly product cycles. Once a product is released, the resources are at once reallocated to the next generation product with an effect of the newly released ones being immediately abandoned. No software support or enhancements of current products to speak of.

The other negative for Sony is that Sony doesn't listen to the customers. Very few important suggestions have ever been implemented by native firmware. Clock, font choice, font sizes, button customization, poor format support (RTF with pictures have been crashing readers for years), weird landscape reading mode, custom dictionaries... Sony developers take their direction from people who don't know how to read [or are unaware of internet forums].